Every history of philosophy begins with Thales, and records with proper solemnity his opinion that the source of all things is water. And every beginning student is shocked. Not until he reaches Plato and Aristotle does he find himself in a world recognizably his own, a world whose science, law, and logic are of a type his own experience has made familiar.
The pronouncements of philosophers are usually answers to questions, whether or not the questions are explicitly put. If Thales claimed that the source of all things is water, his question must presumably have been, What is the source of all things?